Anyone Seen FELA!

Went to the National Theatre at London’s Southbank to see FELA! this week. Very, very powerful experience it was too. More an extravaganza than mere musical, the audience are as much a part of the show as the performers on stage.

Although this official trailer is from the New York show, the performance at the NT features as much of the energy and passion as I am sure the Tony award winning Broadway performances did.

I am not going to post a full review of the show here, as I actually want to go and see it again before the London run finishes on Jan 23rd 2011. FELA! is being broadcasted live in cinemas around the world on Jan 13th 2011, so that will be an opportunity to see it if you don’t get an opportunity to get to London to see it first hand.

Fela Kuti is a legend in musical circles. Renowned as political activist, decadent and controversial, creator of Afrobeat, a mixture of Jazz, funk and African rhythms, we get to see a slice of his life and work in a show that uses his famous club ‘the Shrine’ as a backdrop.

As I said, I plan to review the show fully once I have seen it again. If you haven’t already seen it, I would highly recommend you buy a ticket though, or plan on seeing the live performance on the 13th Jan in your local cinema, (check out NTLive website for details).

Have you seen FELA!, tell everyone what you thought of it? Post a comment below